A star is born?

Briggs performing live at the Folly, January 11th. With a spontaneous, improvised interpretive dance by Calvin.

A Wesley Hymn

Charles Wesley wrote a collection of 6 hymn texts in response to a 1750 earthquake that severely, but not catastrophically, shook London. Consistent with the common theology of his time, much of the lyrics see in the earthquake a summons to repentence and righteous living. The last of the six, however, is a setting of Psalm 46. Thanks to the folks at Duke Divinity School for releasing this material in light of the catastrophe in Haiti.

Let earth’s inmost center quake,

And shatter’d nature mourn,

Let the unwieldy mountains shake,

And fall by storms uptorn,

Fall with all their trembling load

Far into the ocean hurl’d,

Lo! We stand secure in God,

Amidst a ruin’d world.

Prayers for Haiti

Our choirs sang this song this mornings, instead of what we had planned. I found this nice article of faith in Haiti while catching my breath between services. Finally this picture above seems to convey a sense of anguish an hopefulness all at once. We're having a good thought for the family of my former colleague from Eastern NC, and most recently head of the United Methodist Committee on Relief, Sam Dixon, who died in the rubble in Port-au-Prince doing the work he loved.

Thanks to Reuters for letting me post the photo. Credits to Carlos Garcia Rawlins.

Happy Birthday Briggs!

Briggs turns six today. Lo, these many years ago he popped out at about 530 in the morning after along night of pushing and pulling at our house in Richmond. Libby did it with the help of a midwife and me safely at the far end of the house. In my defense I was there at the last to help in what little ways I could. Carolyn P stayed over to help Eli put everything in perspective. 1/14 was also my dad's birthday, and my grandfather's. A propitious day, indeed!

The day after the big dog snow

We wound up with a solid foot of snow in the middle of the yard.

Church for tomorrow 12/20 is cancelled. Also, no choir party tomorrow night.

The wagon is cleared to the street, but we haven't been plowed yet.

The snow is melting a little bit, but something more is supposed to fall tonight.

Menu for a snowy weekend: biscuits and gravy; tortilla pizzas; artichoke spread; potato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches; pancakes and bacon. And that's as far as we are right now.

The walkway is cleared; part of the deck is cleared. The picture below is before I started on the front entryway.

Libby's in the kitchen; pray for us.

Some friends have lost power already; pray for Andy.

More pictures here.

Big dog snow

We haven't had much in the way of snow since we arrived. That changed today. It started snowing before sunrise and went for 4 hours or so. It switched to sleet mid-morning, but by lunchtime was back to snow. Briggs and I made a trip out to see what was going on at church (nothing); buy a couple of food items (popcorn, snack mix and milk), and get kerosene (the fire department responded to a motorist in distress while we were there). And it's been pretty steady ever since. We've got about 3" around the house. Ray's Weather is predicting near 12" for Black Mountain and straight north of here to Burnsville.

It was pretty weird: this morning we had a robo-call from the county school system telling us schools were closed for the day. It was not snowing then. Twenty minutes later it did start snowing. It was like a scene from The Truman Show. I'll get pictures later.

There is all grade of fretting over church activities: our big music is this Sunday for both services. Not sure what we'll wind up doing yet. Kind of depends on how much snow we actually get overnight. We also have our choir party on Sunday evening. That will be up in the air until decisions are made about church services.

Our street got plowed early this morning, but it's covered over again. Not sure if or when we'll see the plows again!

Not your father's Christmas Pageant

From Highland Park PCUSA, just last Sunday. Enjoy.





I'm not sure the track is the best choice (there are plenty of great danceable songs more on point), but I get it. The only thing my co-workers say when I suggest doing something like this is, "yeah, right." Hmmm.